She turned to Otto and whispered, `Can't you start a
hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish.'
Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her suggestion,
then began, `Jesus, Lover of my Soul,' and all the men and women took it up
after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has made me remember
that white waste and the little group of people; and the bluish air, full
of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:
`While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is
high.'
Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass
had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the
prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads no longer ran
about like wild things, but followed the surveyed section-lines, Mr.
Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging wire fence around it, and
an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted, Mrs. Shimerda
never saw the roads going over his head. The road from the north curved a
little to the east just there, and the road from the west swung out a
little to the south; so that the grave, with its tall red grass that was
never mowed, was like a little island; and at twilight, under a new moon or
the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft grey rivers
flowing past it.
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